


Las Memorias

by abelrunner



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Friendship, Gen, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, but it's also the first thing I've written/posted in about three or four years, this started small and got rapidly out of hand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 04:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13263576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abelrunner/pseuds/abelrunner
Summary: “They ain’t talking about you,primo,” Petra said, not unkindly. “Up there, they ain’t saying anything. You got a few people who know you, a few people who remember you. And when they go, you go. And they ain’t getting replaced.”A story about Hector, family, being Forgotten, and feeling like dust.





	Las Memorias

The person who explained it to him was a pretty _adelita_ , maybe a few years younger than he had been when he died. Petra Piñeda, dressed in tattered red and white skirts, bandoliers strapped across her chest and a sombrero on her head, had been in the slums for years. It showed. Hector was still somewhat clean, memory holding bones close together and keeping them strong, but she was nearly copper with age, spider cracks running along her bones like tattoos. She shared a bottle of tequila with him in exchange for cigarettes and a light, and they stayed together for that Dia de los Muertos, the jubilation and music of the plazas above too garish and painful to be near.

“Why don’t they…?” he asked, unsure if such a question was rude. Petra shrugged, her bones clattering together like toys.

“Dunno. Just one year, no photo up. Saw my brother a while back, he said there was a fire. Maybe it got burned up. Either way, the little ones only heard about me from him and now that he’s gone…”

“They’re forgetting you?” It made Hector unbelievably sad, that this girl wouldn’t be remembered. It didn’t even occur to him that the same might happen to him. Perhaps she noticed because she punched him lightly in the shoulder.

“It happens.” Petra grinned at him so broadly, it almost didn’t fit her delicate, youthful skull. “Everyone gets forgotten eventually. That’s just the way it is. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Accept it and enjoy what you got while you got it, _primo._ Ain’t too bad down here. Learn to like it.”

Hector tried. He thought he did pretty well, but he hadn’t expected being forgotten to hurt as bad as it did.

The first time it happened to him was swift but it left him clutching at the wall, gasping for air. Somehow it had managed to be painful in a thousand different ways, to leave it feeling like his heart was breaking as well as his bones. It was like he was a candle flickering out, a flashlight on its last leg, if only for a second.

Later, Hector learned that it was when Ernesto died. One less person that remembered him, one less person that knew his name.

When his brothers-in-law, Felipe and Oscar, passed he was with Chicharrón and Petra. Cheech was strumming his guitar, and Hector might have given him a few pointers but for the most part, he just sat back and enjoyed. Cheech wasn’t an Ernesto fan, said the guy was all flash, so Hector never had to worry about hearing ‘ _Remember Me_ ’ from him the way he might if he went to the upper levels.

It hit Hector like a train, sending him back like someone had punched him. The hand that gripped his shoulder, that almost seemed to keep him from scattering into nothing, was too heavy and thick to be Petra’s.

“You good, _amigo_?” Cheech asked almost casually. Hector nodded, the aftershocks of it making his limbs clatter together like toys. When he pushed himself back up, his bones had gone gold with age.

“Damn,” Petra said dully. “ _No bueno._ ”

“W-what…” Hector stammered, too confused to panic.

“They ain’t talking about you, _primo,_ ” Petra said, not unkindly. “Up there, they ain’t saying anything. You got a few people who know you, a few people who remember you. And when they go, you go. And they ain’t getting replaced.”

Hector’s brain took that information and processed it slowly. Ernesto, Oscar, Felipe, Imelda, and Coco. The people who knew his name, his stories. They couldn’t be it. Surely… surely…

But no. That was his family.

And they didn’t want him.

As the tears welled up in his eyes and the sobs clawed at his ribs, he realized he’d never cried about any of this. Everything had happened so quickly, and then it was all about going home. It had always been about going home, seeing Coco rushing at him from down the dusty street on clumsy little legs, Imelda stepping out from the doorway with flour in her hair and that beautiful smile on her face.

They didn’t want him. He left.

“ _I just wanted to go home._ ”

The arm that wrapped itself around his shoulders wasn’t Imelda’s, but he let it tuck him against Petra’s shoulder as he sobbed.

The fits got more frequent, and he hated the looks he got because of them. Pity in some eyes, suspicion in others. There’s always a reason for being forgotten, after all. Families don’t just forget on accident.

His bones got looser, more brittle. It took horrendously little effort to dislocate things, though it never hurt much. A sharp jab to the ribs left one cracked and loose, though at least the guard had the grace to apologize afterward. Trying to parachute over the Marigold Bridge left him with a shattered fibula that Petra kept together with tape.

“ _Estás loco, cabrón!_ ” She laughed. He grinned through the discomfort.

“ _Un poco_ ,” he replied, and she’d grinned broadly enough to let him know she’d gotten the reference.

Maybe a little crazy, maybe a little desperate. And maybe it got worse over time. At first, his plans were elaborate but as the fits got more frequent, he began to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

How many years had it been? Thirty? Forty?

The first time he pretended to be Frida Kahlo went about as well as the eighth time. It got more and more painful to stand upright, to mimic her quick steps and good posture. His bones began to crack under the strain. It hurt less to slouch and stumble and let his legs move the way they needed to.

“Do you think I could borrow your sombrero?” Hector asked on the forty-fourth Dia de los Muertos. He knew the exact date because last year, the guard had groaned that he’d done this forty-three times. Petra frowned at him from over the bottle of beer she was drinking.

“Like you borrowed Cheech’s van?”

“That almost worked!” Hector protested. “How was I supposed to know it wouldn’t go fast enough?”

“Maybe the fact that it took about an hour and a half to even get it to run?” Hector made a noise of dismissal and disgust. It was the same one that Cheech made most days, and it was very useful, multi-purpose even. Petra rolled her eyes.

“Fine.” She took it off and handed it to him. He beamed and slapped it on his head. “You look like an idiot.”

“I look like an _adelita_!” He said. She gave him a look. “What? Gotta be plenty of adelitas with their photos up. Gotta look like one of them.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, _primo._ ”

“That’s _absolutely_ how it works.”

It wasn’t, but at least they let him keep the sombrero.

“Why keep trying?” Petra asked one night over tequila and smokes. It was the day after Dia de los Muertos and he’d broken his arm after escaping the border agents when they caught him trying to sneak over as an _alebrije_. The break stung but Petra had done her best and it wasn’t wobbling about like his fibula. Now, even with the tape, it shifted and jerked when he walked, making the leg give out half the time.

“Keep trying what?” He asked, exhaling a plume of smoke and passing the tequila bottle over to her.

“Trying to get over the bridge. You know it won’t work. It never does. No photo, no crossing. They can’t change that, you can’t change that. So why bother?”

He looked down at the cigarette between his fingers. They were brown now, like Petra’s. Dull with age and creaky. He imagined that if he’d lived to have arthritis, this might be what it would have felt like.

“I have a daughter,” he said. At Petra’s look of surprise, he realized he’d never told her. “Coco. She was… four when I died. My friend and I, we went off to play music for Mexico. I wanted inspiration, he wanted… well… I guess he wanted fame. Applause. I liked making people happy. I realized a bit too late that the people I wanted to make happy were the people I loved.” He took another slow drag. “I got sick in Mexico City. I was going to go back but on the way to the train station, I just… collapsed. Food poisoning, I guess.” He reached out, and she passed him the bottle again. He took a swig, trying to wash away the bitter taste in his mouth.

“Every year, I fall apart more and more. It’s getting worse. You said… you said they weren’t talking about me. They’re not passing on my stories, my memories. Which means when Coco dies… I’ll be gone. I’ll never see her again. Never tell her that I wanted to come home. That I loved her. So…”

“The bridge is it,” Petra finished quietly. “Getting over’s all you got.”

“But no one’s put up my photo,” he replied. “No one. Ever. So…” He sighed, finished the cigarette, crushed it beneath his bare heel. Petra frowned into the fire pit.

“Hey, Hector, I’m-” She started to say something, her tone soft and gentle, but her words were abruptly cut off by her own cry. A wave of gold shuddered through her, sending her sprawling off the little stool to the ground. Hector scrambled over to her, pulling her half into his lap.

“Petra? What-?”

“I’m going, _primo,_ ” Petra said, her grin no less wide for the lack of strength behind it. “Guess little Isa’s finally-” Another spasm went through her, cutting her off. Hector clutched at her hand, helplessness crashing down on him.

“No, no, no!” Hector groaned. “Not yet. You’ve got a bit longer!” Petra laughed.

“Don’t tell me how long I got, _cabrón,_ ” she chided. “You know when it’s your turn. Feels like… like being dust.” Another flare of light flashed through her bones and she whimpered. It wasn’t a sound he would have ever associated with someone like Petra, but he was abruptly aware of how _young_ she was. He felt his shoulders slump at the sight of her. Without the sombrero, she seemed tiny, the tattered dress clinging to the bare and splintered bones of a child. Petra’s eyes flickered open.

“What’s that face?” She asked. “Quit that, _primo._ ” Hector swallowed hard and gently tugged her a little closer. _She’s younger than Coco is now,_ he realized. The thought of his daughter made something sharp and jagged splinter into his chest. There wasn’t anything he could do. There wasn’t anything anyone could do. He couldn’t make Petra stay a little longer. He couldn’t make Isabel remember. He couldn’t keep Coco from forgetting.

The rumble of the trollies echoed through the narrow streets like thunder. Even then, it all seemed so quiet. No drunken drinking, no rowdy card games, no chatter around campfires. Did they know she was leaving today? Was he the only one that didn’t get the notice?

Almost in a daze, he reached out with the hand that wasn’t holding Petra’s and smoothed back her hair, thinking of Coco. Thinking of when she came bawling during a thunderstorm, or after a nightmare. How he and Imelda would pass her back and forth between them, singing softly into the dark until she went slack with sleep in their arms. Usually they wouldn’t even bother taking her back to her bed. They’d just let her nestle between them and they’d go back to sleep, or whisper over her head, depending on the time.

“ _En el alto de la abrupta serranía,_

_Acampado se encontraba un regimiento,_

_Y una moza que valiente los seguía_

_Locamente enamorada del sargento…”_

He did it without thinking, holding her hand and singing into the dark. It was a _corrido_ from when he was younger, from the revolution that had taken his family, and Imelda’s, and Hector’s all. The song was about a _soldadera_ who fell in love with a sergeant and fought by his side, claiming the respect and hearts of everyone who saw her with her bravery and beauty.

“ _Popular entre la tropa era Adelita_

_La mujer que el sargento idolatraba_

_Que además de ser valiente era bonita_

_Que hasta el mismo coronel la respetaba…”_

The pain on Petra’s face smoothed into a soft smile. The song seemed to stick to them, never echoing out and away. Just here. Just hers. It was the least he could do really. That’s why he sang, after all. To make the people he cared about happy.

“ _Y se oía, que decía, aquel que tanto la quería…_

_Y si Adelita se fuera con otro_

_La seguiría por tierra y por mar_

_Si por mar, en un buque de guerra_

_Si por tierra, en un tren militar…”_

Another golden wave coursed through her body but this time she seemed too weak to react. He held her tighter, as if he could keep her from flying apart. He couldn’t even keep himself from falling apart most days. Still, it seemed to help some. He felt her slump a little against him.

“ _Y si Adelita quisiera ser mi esposa_

_Y si Adelita ya fuera mi mujer_

_Le compraría un vestido de seda_

_Para llevarla a bailar al cuartel…”_

“Been holding out on me, _primo,_ ” Petra said, almost too quietly for him to hear. “Should do that more often.” She reached up with her free hand and patted him clumsily on the cheekbone. “Hang around a while longer, Hector. See your _hija._ Sing for her. And maybe we see each other again… maybe we don’t… But hey…” She smiled almost dreamily up at him, the gold starting to inch across her bones. “Remember me, eh?”

“I will.”

She flew apart in his arms, a shower of golden sparks that raced up into the sky.

He didn’t know how long he’d been there when Chicharrón limped up and sat next to him.

“Hey, Cheech,” Hector whispered. The old man grunted and picked up the bottle of tequila Petra had been drinking, taking a swig before passing it over to Hector.

“She wouldn’t have wanted it wasted,” he said in response to Hector’s silence, and Hector had to admit that it was true. Taking the bottle he lifted it skyward, where those golden sparks had floated off into the darkness and drained it. For once, Cheech didn’t complain.

“Good thing you did,” Cheech said instead. Hector looked up with a frown. “For Peetee. Good voice too. Didn’t think you had that in you.” Hector laughed bitterly.

“Yeah… haven’t… done that for a while.” Cheech nodded, considering.

“You know ‘ _Juanita’_?” He asked.

“Everyone knows ‘ _Juanita_ ’,” Hector joked. Cheech made a noise that was somewhere between a snort and the sound one made before spitting.

“A funny man too. _Alabanza._ ”

\--

Imelda died about thirty years later and the moment it happened, Hector understood what Petra meant when she said you would know when it was your turn.

He was with a couple of _tías_ when it happened. They cooed over him sympathetically when it sent him to his knees.

“ _Ay, pobrecito,_ ” Tia Chelo sighed, patting his back soothingly as the fit passed.

He tried to find Imelda, and he did find her. Making shoes, of all things. He expected anger, and he got that and more. More and more and more.

After a while, he stopped going.

The fifteenth time he pretended to be Frida Kahlo went about as well as the eighth but surely this time… surely…

The Marigold Bridge nearly swallowed him up as he tried to fling himself across it, the smell of the damn things almost making him sick. The guards dragged him off and he slumped in their arms, nearly spent. He could feel it. He could _feel it._

He felt like dust.

And then…

_And then, and then, and then…_

He watched the sunbeams hit Miguel’s face, turning the skin transparent as the boy sobbed.

“I promised to put your photo up!” He babbled as Hector reached up and cupped his cheek. He could see the cheekbones there now. They were Imelda’s.

“We’re both out of time, _m’ijo._ ”

Miguel called him ‘Papa Hector’ and promised he wouldn’t let Coco forget.

Promises, promises. Hector promised to come home.

 _Sometimes things happen,_ he thought vaguely as a flurry of petals encircled his great-great-grandson. _Don’t let it tear you up._

Silence followed, Imelda’s hands still wrapped around his own, the family he barely knew standing vigil. That weird little dog, the _alebrije_ , padded up and curled up next to him, his own heartbeat thudding through Hector’s chest. The family stepped closer as more ripples of pain cut him to the marrow.

He wasn’t scared. More like disappointed. _I was so close._

He felt like he was made of dust. Like a breeze could carry him off and away.

Imelda was still holding his hand.

Someone touched his shoulder. He tried to open his eyes, but even that was too much.

“I’m Victoria,” a voice said gently. “You’re my _abuelito._ I’m sorry we didn’t get to know each other.”

“You would have eaten him alive,” Imelda said with a watery laugh. “You and Elena? You would have eaten him for breakfast. Ah, Hector, you wouldn’t have stood a chance against them. I barely did.” He would have laughed if he had the strength, but he settled for squeezing Imelda’s hand as hard as he could, which was hardly at all.

“Been awhile, Hector,” either Oscar or Felipe said. “You looked better the last time we saw you.”

“A bit more meat on your bones,” the other agreed.

“As if you’re ones to talk,” Imelda chided.

“I’m Julio,” another voice said hesitantly. “I, um… I married Coco. We met at the plaza. I taught her to dance. And Mama Imelda taught me how to make shoes!”

“An altogether more practical thing,” Imelda said. There was a round of watery chuckles.

“I’m Rosita. I’m Julio’s sister, which I guess… makes you my Papa Hector!” The high voice laughed quietly. “Coco is so wonderful. So kind and sweet. I don’t think she’s ever had it in her to hate anyone. So…” A wet, thick sniffle. “D-don’t you go off thinking she didn’t love you. Because she does!”

He didn’t know what hurt more. Those words or Imelda’s sob that followed.

“She does,” she said quietly. “I tried… Damn you, Hector, I tried so hard to get her to stop singing and dancing, but she never did. You were always there with her. Sometimes… s-sometimes she’d sing that song you wrote her and I thought… I thought maybe she got it from that _bastardo,_ De la Cruz… but it was you. Of course it was you. She never hated you. I tried to make her forget, I made everyone too scared to put up your photo or tell your stories because it _hurt._ But she’s stubborn, just so stubborn…” She broke off with a quiet, broken sob, and there was a beat of near-complete silence.

“Wonder where she gets it from,” Hector said weakly, squeezing her hand a bit. Quiet sobs became quiet laughter and something… shifted.

A thin wisp of strength wrapped around his breastbone, threading into his bones. Distantly, impossibly quiet, he thought he heard a lullaby.

The golden waves weakened, softened. Stopped.

The Riveras stood transfixed. No one moved, as if fearing the slightest shift would break the spell.

The strength started slow but built rapidly. He could open his eyes. He could sit up. He could breathe. A thousand aches and pains he’d forgotten about were abruptly made known purely by their abrupt absence.

Beside him, Dante huffed in a decidedly pleased way and gave Hector a big, slobbery kiss across the face. And as quickly as that the entire family collapsed against him, and he was wrapped in a cage of tangled limbs and love, Dante trying to butt in and wiggle between arms and Pepita purring like an engine nearby.

Dimly, Hector was aware of a thunderous applause, an audience cheering. But that had never mattered. His wife and granddaughter held him, his son-in-law laughed, Rosita bawled against his shoulder.

And somewhere across the Marigold Bridge, Coco began to talk about her papa.

\--

Hector felt out-of-place walking into the slum. There were a few people out and about, and the looks he got would have made him blush if he’d had the blood and skin to do so.

He tapped gently on the stool Petra had always sat at. “ _Buenos días, prima._ ”

The house he’d lived in for nearly a century always seemed like it was about to collapse on itself. Still, Hector had to admit his luck in getting the bottom floor. If it fell over, the worst that would happen would be losing a roof.

Hector closed the door behind him and slumped to the ground, gasping like a man pulled from the ocean. He held his hands up, not daring to believe.

Clean, white like fallen snow. He tugged gently at each finger, amazed at how they didn’t separate from his knuckles. He stretched his legs out and marveled at the silence.

She remembered. And she’d told them about him.

_Loved._

_Wanted._

_Stay._

He didn’t know when the laughter turned into sobs, but when it happened he wasn’t surprised.

There was a knock at the door. He scrubbed at his face and pushed himself to his feet. “ _Un momento!”_ Probably a neighbor coming to get him to quiet down.

But when he opened the door it was Imelda standing there.

“Ah… I-Imelda…?” Hector gasped. She’d never been here before, and he’d never imagined her being here. Suddenly, he was painfully aware of the state of his home, of the smell of the slum and the fact that his jacket only had one sleeve.

“Hector.” Her tone wasn’t cold. They stared at each other for a moment before she coughed awkwardly. “May I come in?”

“Of course!” Hector said reflexively, immediately regretting it. He stepped to the side and she stepped in, her smart little shoes making no sound on the soft, rotting floorboards.

With her in the middle of the room, the mess seemed more pronounced. Imelda had always been an orderly person. In the past, Hector had been as well. Never as much as Imelda, but cleanliness had never been an issue between them.

Here and now, however, was a different story. Hector’s tiny single room was as much a hoarder's nest as Cheech’s had been. He never knew if a random thing would help him in the future, either to fix something or create some contraption that would maybe, possibly get him across the bridge. So he kept everything: clothes, pots, pans, scraps of metal and wood and cloth, wigs of every length and shade and style, makeup, paint, even furniture. Everything was piled up in this or that corner, shoved as close to the wall as possible to have enough room to move.

“This is… where you’ve lived…” Imelda said. If he looked out-of-place here now, she looked like a goddess on earth. Granted, to him she always did.

“Eh, heh… Yeah.” He kicked at a skirt on the floor, trying to hide it under the bed. She raised a delicately painted pseudo-eyebrow at him, and he could only shrug helplessly in response. She’d always seemed too big for the rooms she was in, the sheer grandeur of her too much for Santa Cecila or the tiny house they’d lived in. As children, she’d seemed like a princess. Now, she seemed like a queen.

Maybe his thoughts were showing on his face because her own expression softened. She looked towards the back wall.

“Our house was about this size when we got married,” she said. “Remember?” He chuckled and hazarded a step towards her. When she didn’t protest, he nodded.

“Yeah… Less, maybe?”

“Probably,” she agreed. “We expanded after I opened the store. Coco got married. Had children. Her husband’s sister came to live with us.”

“It seems like a good family,” Hector said softly. “A strong one you built.” Imelda smiled.

“I thought so,” she said. “Now… now it seems like it was strong in spite of me.” Hector was stunned.

“Imelda-”

“Hush. I’m speaking now.” His mouth shut with a click, and Imelda nodded approvingly before continuing. “Coco… She always loved music. Always. They all did. I did too. But every time I heard music, or sang to Coco, or danced, or saw her dance, I…” She closed her eyes and sighed heavily. “I forgot to be angry at you. And even if it was just for a moment…” She looked at him, expression flinty. “You left. You and that… that _pig_. You left and I… I wish I hated you for it. But I never did. Not really. I was angry. I wanted to forget you… but I wanted to forget you because as long as I remembered you, I…” Imelda’s expression twisted with grief, and she turned away. Hector stood, frozen in place. His instinct was to reach out, reassure, but…

Imelda took a deep breath, visibly composing herself before turning back to him. “I don’t know if I can forgive you, Hector,” she said. “But… If last night has shown me anything, it’s that family… family comes first. I’ve put my anger before family for too long.” She looked him up and down, her eyes finding his bare feet and frowning. “You need shoes,” she said, and he cocked his head at the sudden change of subject.

“I… what?”

“You. Need. Shoes.” Imelda spoke slowly, like when they taught Coco words… or when they were young and he was being very dense. “You can hardly expect to come over for dinner looking like that.” If Hector still had a physical heart, it would have skipped one, maybe two beats.

“Dinner?” He asked. Imelda nodded.

“They want to meet you,” she said. “The family. Outside of life or death situations, so to speak. Victoria is… excited to meet her _abuelito_ and Julio, well… Is perhaps glad to have an in-law that is less likely to hit things with shoes.” She rolled her eyes, as if Julio was being ridiculous and the concept of her being terrifying wasn’t something she’d carefully cultivated since they were children. “Rosita wants to feed you, but she wants to feed most people.”

“And…” Hector fought the urge to step closer, though every splinter of him wanted to. “What do you want?”

Imelda’s businesslike demeanor cracked like a diamond hit at precisely the right angle. The wood of the floor was too damp and rotten for her shoes to click on, but there was still a soft percussion of thuds as she took one, two, three steps forward and took his hands in hers.

“I-” Again Imelda cut herself off, visibly forcing herself to calm as her hands squeezed his with painful strength. “I… want to forgive you. I don’t know if I can, but… But I can’t keep pretending that you’re not a part of me. Or Coco.” She stood a little straighter, jaw set and determined. Something in the center of Hector’s chest fluttered at the sight of it. “Coco will want to see you. And if she comes here and we’re not talking, she’ll be very disappointed.”

“She’s been disappointed enough,” Hector agreed. Imelda tilted her head, eyes narrowing, searching. Then, slowly, she leaned up and kissed him.

It was much like the first time they kissed. Hardly anything for movies from the outside, just a careful, soft press. But made Hector’s bones feel like water, made him feel weak with love. He reached up on reflex, cupping her face in his hands, not daring to pull away.

He half-expected her to slap him or push him away, but she didn’t. She reached up, gently covered his hand with hers, and smiled.

For half a second, Hector forgot he was dead.

“Come on,” Imelda said, somehow not quite managing to break the spell. “Let’s get you some shoes.”

“Whatever you say, _mi sol_ ,” Hector said, sounding punch-drunk. And with a laugh, she pulled him out of the house and into the sun.


End file.
